Ocean Titans:
Journeys in Search
of the Soul of a Ship
By Daniel Sekulich
Penguin Canada, 242 pages, $26
The mystique and mechanism of ships, the life of mariners at sea and the traditions that bind them have always held a fascination for Toronto filmmaker and author Daniel Sekulich. He brings all of this together when he sets out to discover if a ship has a soul.
Sekulich guides the reader through the myriad details of building a ship, life on board and, of course, maritime history. The New World was opened up to mercantile interests and economic refugees in the 16th century by English and Spanish pirates, who become their country's roving ambassadors of plunder and power. As a result, they became better known in history than the honest, stoically courageous seamen. Sekulich places things in perspective when he describes the isolation and the harsh elements endured by those who went to sea to make a living.
Nova Scotian Joshua Slocum bought an old sloop, the Spray, made it seaworthy and in 1898 became the first person to journey solo around the world. My Down East school textbooks made no mention of Slocum. It was as if he had been on a secret mission of the utmost discretion.
Shipbuilding is the world's fastest growing industry, with South Korea leading the way. Sekulich interviews shipbuilders, many located in Monaco, and finds them to be a reticent lot who prefer to sail their vessels under rented flags of convenience. According to centuries-old tradition, a ship has to have a home port. Countries such as Panama, a major player, relax shipping safety standards to sign on more ships, resulting in hundreds of vessels being lost at sea. The UN International Labour Organization says that between March, 2003, and April, 2005, 13,000 mariners died at sea. This startling news, Sekulich says, goes largely unnoticed by the public, because military casualties in Iraq are deemed by the news media to be more important.
To gain a first-hand account of life aboard a seagoing vessel, Sekulich signs on the Antwerpen, a cargo ship carrying coal and gypsum along the Eastern Seaboard. The ship is manned by a captain and crew from Poland. The captain, following old tradition, is referred to as the Old Man. The crew, as on most freighters, is confined to a small space, and privacy is valued. In off hours, cabin doors are locked. For some mariners, life on board is like being in prison, while for others it's a rewarding experience in an ever-changing environment. Late at night, small marine organisms emit a "cold light of the sea." Religious icons help to allay cosmic doubts for some, while providing a spiritual connection.
Sekulich asks the crew if the ship has a soul. The answers vary, but the crew is pleased at receiving due recognition, which is also the purpose of this book.
One of the more intriguing sections concerns dicey navigation, which has resulted in many disasters at sea. When 2,000 mariners were killed in 1707 because of haphazard longitude plotting, the British announced a reward for anyone inventing an improved method of navigation, essentially by coming up with a better timepiece. One bizarre entry involved "the powder of sympathy": Several dogs were to be stabbed with a special knife empowered by a magic powder. After healing, the dogs would be placed on board ships, where they would howl in a sort of psychic Pavlovian response every day at noon, when the knife was dipped in a bowl of the powder at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. The Board of Longitude was not impressed. The dilemma was solved when John Harrison invented a reliable chronometer in 1761.
The author goes to India, where unseaworthy ships are broken up by shipyard workers, artisans who refashion the parts into items such as dinner bowls, construction materials and engine components. Thus the ship is reincarnated and its spirit lives on, Sekulich says.
There's a careful balance between past and present in this book. The author pays tribute to the merging of seafaring and technology that created the ability to build oceangoing vessels, and to the skill used to sail these titans of the deep across the Earth's seas and oceans. Sekulich becomes part of this informative story because the sea doesn't exempt anyone, not even a writer who might want to propitiate it with a worthy book.
Halifax-born Alfred Rushton has sailed on and been on board a variety of oceangoing vessels. He's the author of Honour on the High Seas, a naval play set in the 19th century. He lives in Brantford, Ont
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